Fronted by brothers Kevin and PJ Whitty, Mastiff Engineering Ltd. are Ireland’s premier heavy lift and equipment move-in and fitting specialists. Building Ireland dropped into their head office in County Wexford to find out more about this exceptional, industry leading operation from office manager Mary Lawless.
Mastiff Engineering is one of Ireland’s leading rigging companies, carrying a large inventory of rigging gear and plant. Working with many of the top engineering companies, they have successfully delivered rigging and heavy lift projects within the food and drink, pharmaceutical and medical industries as well as many others.
Boasting extensive experience of offloading, moving and positioning a variety of large equipment of various weights and dimensions, Mastiff’s trusty team of riggers are intensively trained to work to the most professional and safety-conscious standards both on and off site.
Their experienced personnel have the ability to use many techniques of lifting and shifting heavy loads, thus securing Mastiff’s place at the forefront of the highly-specialist rigging sector, which provides invaluable services to the construction industry.
The culture of the company ensures flexibility in their work, which benefits clients greatly, guaranteeing that they will solve any issues that may arise during a project. Mastiff have a long list of suppliers who prioritise and support them as they carry out their work.
Meanwhile, Mastiff – who employ a number of appointed persons with the ability to oversee lifts of any size or shape – are closely linked to a number of crane and scaffolding suppliers and fabricators who work directly with them both on and off site.
Recently, Mastiff added two new trucks to their fleet, one fitted with a Palfinger PK76002EH Hiab, as well as becoming members of the Irish Road Haulage Association. Furthermore, a new spider crane with 3ton lifting capacity and a 30-metre Manitou 360 teleporter have been added to the impressive company inventory.
“We’re building up our own equipment,” office manager Mary Lawless notes . “As members of the IRHA, with two trucks on the road, we can move gear nationwide, while we’ve also worked in the UK and on the continent for some of our clients.”
Reflecting on the genesis of the family-run business, which has gone from strength to strength for coming up on two decades – on the back of providing clients with unrivalled heavy lift and equipment move-in and fitting services – Mary continues:
“PJ and Kevin, who have over 50 years’ experience between them working in industry in Ireland, the UK and Europe, and Mastiff Engineering was born in 2007. They operate within a variety of sectors, predominantly pharma, food and drink, data centres, energy and IT, providing specialist services to some of the biggest engineering companies. Essentially, we lift, move, install and relocate large machinery and equipment, which can be a very specialist operation.”
Indeed, if one thinks of the potential headaches and complications that could go hand in hand with positioning a large box inside a small space with very little room to manoeuvre, it gives a slight indication of how challenging the work carried out by Mastiff on a daily basis can be!
Although skilled riggers are hard to source, Mastiff Engineering nevertheless generates direct employment for a crew of 60 – quite an accomplishment bearing in mind that Ireland was in the throes of recession not too long ago!
In the office Mary is joined by Joanne Whitty (Operational and Accounts Manager) and Cathy Colfer (Administration Officer).
“The support for works upcoming and ongoing from the office is essential to the work onsite. The men cannot operate without the support of the office,” explained Mary. “We are working directly with the clients all the time ensuring all the documents required are onsite in time for works to commence with no issues as well as running a very tight HR department ensuring training and certificate on gear are continually updated on time.”
Mastiff have men trained to test and certify lifting gear and tackle as well as to carry out load testing of lifting beams or anchor points fitted to the structure of a building (this can also be carried out for third parties).
One of the leading heavy lift and rigging specialists operating in the Irish market, offering clients a unique service at the most competitive rates available, Mastiff are experts in lifting, moving, installing and relocating a large variety of machinery and equipment using specialist techniques developed over the years through experience and knowledge. The company employ a variety of skillsets including: appointed lift supervisors, banksmen and machine operators, riggers and general operatives.
Mastiff’s vast inventory of machinery and equipment includes cranes; hoists and Working at Heights equipment; a variety of teleporters (including 360s); a large range of forklifts; frame gantry and beams; air skates; a range of machine / tank skates from small dolly skates to large 60ton skates complete with turntable; specialist confined space equipment; toe jacks (safe working load ranges from 5ton to 25ton; pull lifts / roll lifts / panel carriers / pallet trucks / slings / shackles / chain blocks / fall arrest systems and countless other items required to carry out heavy lift and shift projects.
Health and safety are an absolute priority at Mastiff Engineering Ltd. and the company’s personnel are always trained to the highest standard, operating in teams working under a qualified site supervisor. New entrants to the workforce and the industry are given specialist training by the more experienced personnel to ensure that their knowledge is fast tracked to the standard necessary to carry out such specialised tasks.
All existing personnel are upskilled and retrained in various techniques throughout the year to ensure team members are always operating as safely, effectively and efficiently as possible.
Mastiff Engineering Ltd provide safety certification to the client for all machinery, equipment and personnel involved in each project in advance of commencement. This includes Risk Assessment Method Statements (RAMS), Lift Plans, Safe Plan of Actions (SPA) and GA certification.
Because of the company’s ability to generate unique and creative solutions to complex lifts, they have worked with some of the largest engineering and production companies in the market including Jones Engineering, Suir Engineering, BMD & Co Ltd, MSL Engineering, LMH Engineering, Dunreidy Engineering, Dornan Engineering, Glanbia, Water’s Technology Ireland, SPX Flow Technologies, Mercury Engineering ,William Grant & Son Whiskey , Veolia Water Technologies, Kents Stainless, OMC Technologies , GEA Process Engineering, Winthrop Engineering, Buttimer Engineering, Clancy Construction, Bausch & Lomb, West Pharma as well as many others.
At the time of writing, Mastiff Engineering had men and equipment on site at many locations nationwide for a variety of clients. “The work is there and we have grown over the years by meeting market demand,” Mary concludes. “You have to look after all of your customers on every project. There’s very strong demand for our services and sometimes this entails working nationwide with our close suppliers to make sure we always meet this demand.
Mastiff Engineering,
Unit 27 & 28,
Ballingly Enterprise Centre,
Wellingtonbridge,
County Wexford.
Tel: 051560824
Mobile: 087 9720519 (Kevin) / 087 2107840 (PJ)
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.mastiffengineering.ie
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, November 2019, Vol 5 No 10
